Oscar-winning actress Cate Blanchett shines in the titular role of Lydia Tár, one of the world’s most famous conductors. Tár is a powerful character study of someone who realizes that conducting a huge orchestra can, paradoxically, be much simpler than conducting one’s own life. Conductor Lydia Tár is at the height of her creative powers. She is in her seventh year of conducting a prestigious German orchestra, planning to publish a book, and preparing a performance of Mahler’s Fifth Symphony that is expected to be the peak of this concert season. Lydia comes across as confident, self-assured, dominant and powerful. But under this seemingly solid mask hides an ordinary human being, complete with fears, insecurities, desires and needs. With her conductor’s baton in hand, Lydia stands by her every decision, but when she leaves the orchestra stage, she often feels the earth start to shake beneath her feet. Sometimes just slightly, but at other times downright fatefully.